Hard Candy
by drosier
Summary: Carly’s breathing feels heavier--like her lungs are producing stone--and she hears Spencer scream, “Ow, my eye!” but Sam’s sitting in front of her, taking a jackhammer to her heart. Carly/Sam, Rodney/Sam Roam?, slight Freddie/Carly. Twoshot. Mostly Cam
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **I feel like I'm kind of out of my element here, but I was in the mood for some unadulterated Cam angst, only I was too lazy to go and look for any, so I wrote my own. Any recs? xD

Carly and Sam are juniors in high school here. Rip-Off Rodney would be a senior.

I tried to keep this oneshotish and under 1,000 words, but it came out at nearly 9,000, so the last section will definitely be up within a couple of days. :)

**Disclaimer: **I disclaim all claims to _iCarly. _ The name 'BF Wangs' was taken from _Drake & Josh_._  
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**Hard Candy**

i.

"Let's not say anything about this," Sam says in a cool, casual voice – like a flick of the wrist, one designed to brush away the past ten minutes. The weightlessness of her words isn't what Carly expects, and Sam glances questioningly up at Carly as she straightens out her shirt collar. "Especially not to our dork."

"_Well_," Carly chuckles. "I kinda thought -"

Sam's hands suddenly go very still at her neck, and Carly realizes that Sam's posture doesn't exactly suggest she wants to start getting cozy on Carly's throw pillows.

Something hits the other side of the bedroom door before Spencer's voice drifts through, sounding too close for comfort, even though Carly knows he wouldn't just barge inside.

"You guys!" he screams. "Are you gonna be a long time, whatever you're doing? No hurry, but - my leg – my leg is stuck in the wall, and I – _Freddo_, thank god you're here!"

Sam turns back from the door with a look that's all careless lines and raised eyebrows, and it's just like her, but at the same time, Sam's hands and the way she's clumsily fiddling with her shirt cuffs give her away entirely.

"What?" Sam asks, forcing a light laugh. The slight reprieve Spencer may have provided is gone, and they're facing each other with nothing but the past ten minutes writhing uncomfortably between them. "It was just a onetime deal. Right, Carls? We were just playing around."

Technically, and Carly thinks about it carefully as Sam shoves her hands into her pockets, it was kind of playing around. Though the part where the crème-colored carpet her dad helped her pick out gave her a rug burn where her blouse rode up at the small of her back - rode up because _someone_ had a hand on her thigh and might have been trying to get the other one up her blouse (Carly couldn't really tell; there was a lot of fumbling and general mind-numbness.) - kind of threw her off.

It's not that Carly expects anything, especially since – well, it started with a messy fight over a scented marker that would usually end with her and Sam inking up Carly's good bedsheets while they scarfed down buttered popcorn and fruit kabobs. But it didn't turn out that way this time, so they should at least talk about it.

Right now.

But then there's that look on Sam's face, like she might hit something if anything goes a bit off course and veers into uncomfortable or emotionally confusing, and it's not like Carly thinks Sam will hit her, but she thinks maybe this isn't the time to be bold. Maybe they could talk about it if Sam had just punched Carly in the face, but not when it's _this_. Not now, with Spencer trapped inside a wall just outside her door.

"Right," Carly intones brightly, smiling like her face muscles just went haywire, thinking maybe this is all just her cowardice thinly disguised as rational thinking. She makes her way past Sam quickly, brushing shoulders with her as she goes.

Carly doesn't quite understand her motives for why, but even the tiniest motions streaming through her body make sure to guarantee some shoulder-brushing, like it's reassurance. Though if it's Carly reassuring herself that Sam won't flinch away at the slightest touch or Carly reassuring Sam that she's not going to be the one to freak out and be weird, Carly doesn't know. Perhaps it's both. In all probability, it's more.

There's a ruckus on the other side of the door, boyish grunts and what is possibly the sound of a wall caving in slowly, and Carly's hand is positioned around the doorknob in a distinct opening fashion when Sam's hand is curling around her upper arm.

"What?" Carly breaths, and the tone conveys nothing but scattered nerves, which wasn't part of the whole reassurance thing. Only Carly can't help it: something - anticipation maybe - bubbles over in her belly like hot soup, because when she turns, Sam's face has softened, and there is definite leaning.

A fair amount of the blue in Sam's eyes has been washed away by the gaping black of her pupils, and she rolls her eyes playfully, moving forward. Awareness suddenly becomes even more stingily selective as Carly's thoughts are pushed out by the rush of blood to her head, because really, for that moment an odd feeling passes through her, and it's that maybe this all makes so much _sense. _

"It's just that," Sam says softly. She looks down for a moment, and instead of kissing Carly again, Sam reaches out, stupid plaid shirt cuffs brushing her knuckles as she quickly runs a hand four times through Carly's hair. She sounds much more herself when she speaks again. "_There_. You wouldn't wanna go out wearing your carpet for a hair piece."

Sam takes a rigid step back and presses the back of her hand to her mouth for no reason Carly can see, and Carly nearly gapes. _Nearly_; though it would probably be a more dignified reaction than her own mouth betraying her to yell out the words, "Synthetic fluff makes the worst hair!"

Sam just grins at her, looking fondly amused. "What're we waiting for then?" she asks, clasping her hands in front of her. "There's a man out there with his foot in the wall!"

Like it's easy, Sam flings herself cannon-like out into the hallaway where Freddie is huddled over by the wall across the way. He's with Spencer, who is slinking so far down he's all but dangling from Freddie's strained shoulder.

Both of them are making faces like they'd just gotten through punching each other in the solar plexus.

"Oh, thank god! I think I may have ankle damage," Spencer informs them, twisting around on the spot as she and Sam exit Carly's room. Carly might have laughed if this were all happening another time, but the shock of everything continuing on the way it was when just a moments ago, inside her room -

"Do you have to hold on so tight?" Freddie asks sharply. "I think –"

Freddie stops mid pained complaint, and his eyes light up as he shoots a quick glance over toward the sliver of Carly's room still exposed, like it's the last piece of birthday cake.

Even though she knows he just wants an illicit peek of her room since Spencer banned him when they were twelve, Carly slams the door like she's putting a hand over his eyes.

Carly straightens out her shirt and thinks – and it's stupid - that he can take one look at the crème-colored carpet and just _know_.

With Freddie's hands occupied in preventing Spencer from carelessly pulling Freddie's shoulder from the socket, Sam must think Freddie appears to all but have a red bull's-eye painted across his forehead. She strolls up to Freddie and punches him lightly in the gut: he flinches, and she asks, sounding supremely amused:

"So what's going on here?"

"Sam," Carly reprimands, getting back into that groove years of routine has carved out for them before going over to disentangle her brother from Freddie's withering form.

Sam moves forward with arms outstretched, and they both tug Spencer out of the vent he somehow got his entire leg jammed in ("That rat stole my teeny tiny top hat!" he hollers between the tugging.) and everything smooths over into normalcy, like waves washing out blemishes spread across the sand.

Only Carly can't let it go the way Sam seems to be able to, because her lips feel puffy and tingle numbly as if she was sucking on too much sour candy, and now her mouth feels red and raw from it. Because something fell away in those moments in her bedroom; she _feels_ it, like getting into a too-hot shower or stepping on a nail with your bare feet.

And while she tells herself it's crazy, because it's just Sam, and neither of them meant to do it - she might be starting to understand something now. Maybe.

_"We were just playing around."_

The words run prickly, run like a monumental sting through her veins and into her skull, and vaguely she registers Sam taking another chance to physically debilitate Freddie, which should call for some pointed – though always soft – reprimanding.

Only Carly begins to wonder if she just got the bigger blow.

ii.

A week later, Sam's dating Rip-Off Rodney.

It's after he gets them some insanely awesome - albeit previously recalled – flyswatters for an iCarly bit, though it's possibly not unfair at all to mention that it's the day after Carly and Sam's "onetime deal" got an encore.

It was the weekend after the first time _it_ happened, and it only took a party and both of them pretending to be drunk, or maybe drunker than they actually were in Sam's case.

The party was Melanie Cass', honoring her emergence from a four-year coma, and was set in the glowy innards of a glow-in-the-dark golf course. It was after the place had closed its doors to the public, since Gibby's uncle owned the place, and the courses were littered with people (except Melanie Cass, whose parents said she couldn't go because she'd just come out of a coma) doing everything but playing golf.

They didn't matter, though. None of it did. Not to Carly.

The music had cracked and ripped like a fabric, and the sharp smell of soft smoke covered them like a blanket, though all that mattered then was finding Sam through a thicket of sweaty limbs and disposable plastic cups.

Carly was making a dancing retreat from a shirtless Gibby, who had gotten nothing if not pinker, taller, and hairier over the years when someone had shoved Carly roughly from behind, and she was stabbed by a hipbone and felt other things that let her know it was a girl behind her.

She'd leaned back into her, knowing it had to be Sam as Sam grabbed her hips while colors, lights, and people danced before Carly's eyes.

Before thinking about it, Carly'd taken Sam by the wrist and dragged her off, the pulse of the music pushing them away from the crowd like waves. There was an urgent, desperate feeling as they went deeper into something that was much more quiet - _private_.

When they came to a house-shaped structure, one that had fake, glow-in-the-dark windows and a small golf ball-sized hole in the front, Carly crawled into the tiny interior through a trap door in the back, pushing Sam, who was already breathing heavily, in front of her. Inside, the boards of the structure were exposed, the walls raw and unpainted, and Carly didn't know what she had expected. A playhouse with a tiny stove perhaps: something pink, incongruous, and child-like - but it wasn't that.

Though it didn't stop Carly from lunging at Sam, and god, neither did Spencer's words on remaining ladylike. They tumbled gracelessly to the ground, knocking elbows, knees, and heads against the unpainted walls. Constantly.

But she couldn't stop kissing Sam, not ever, because Sam made these small noises in the back of her throat that made Carly's breath catch and her mind go numb, so all Carly could think about was pressing herself into Sam, hungry for her to make those sounds again and again and then wanting to cry when Sam finally did.

They laid there for the rest of the party, uncomfortably folded up (but together, which was the important part). Breathing heavily over a dry, dirty ground, and looking up the curved ceiling - nails and caulking still exposed even - Carly thought it was almost like she and Sam belonged together then. _That_ way.

That is, until it was time to go home, and a couple of the younger kids pushed the trap door open so they had to make up some lame story about Sam's rage not mixing with booze.

Not that it _meant_ anything. They'd actually discussed it, skirting the edges and mentioning the words 'fooling around' and 'bored' and 'brushing up,' though on skills for guys and not the distinct brushing up that had gone on, which thinking about caused Carly to half-shout 'just a insane fest of lip-locking madness. Between friends!'

But _still_. There Rodney stands in all of his puffy-haired, illicit-flyswatter-getting glory with his grimy hands stuffed into the tight back pocket of Sam's bright jean skirt when Carly turns the corner to go to her locker after school.

Carly's dragging Sam away from the pocket-grabber the first chance she gets, and Sam doesn't even protest the way their sneakers do, squeaking all the way to the new location like an alarm.

Carly pulls Sam through the first door she sees, though unsurprisingly, that isn't really the best choice, since it's a janitor's closet, and the smell of some recently-spilt cleanser stings her nose and makes her sneeze.

Though nasal pain or not, Carly decides to ask Sam about Rodney subtly.

"You're _dating_ him?" Carly shrieks.

"What?" Sam asks, looking incredulous.

'What' is that Carly remembers Sam grabbing for her hand that morning in US Government, during the schools "shameful execution" of a mock-Code Red, to draw tiny curved things on her hands and arms in lavender ink and how that made Carly's stomach feel like it had made a daring leap from tip of the Space Needle.

"And _ow_, your nails are digging into my arms."

Carly drops her hands from where she was unaware that she was clutching Sam.

"He's icky," Carly suggests, rubbing her wrist where there's a purple pig head with wings and an antennae. "And he cleans his fingernails with the metal part of his eraser, which he _chews._ He chews the eraser part right off!"

Sam shrugs and tries not to look uncomfortable, but she just ends up smiling stupidly.

"Think the show! Of all the insane stuff Rodney'll -"

_"Insanely illegal stuff."_

"That too," Sam concedes. "But think about all the insane stuff we're gonna get for iCarly. This'll blow Hippos On Steroids Dot Com right out of the water."

"We've already blown Hippos On Steroids Dot Com out of the water," Carly huffs.

"I know," Sam says, gesturing lazily. "That site's bordering on desperate, and they've got some super discounted merchandise now to try and keep up."

Carly rolls her eyes. "_Okay_. I know an attempt to veer from the path of an uncomfortable conversation when I see one."

"I'm shocked you would think that of me, Shay," Sam gasps, feigning indignation.

"It's true," Carly deadpans.

"Yeah," Sam says and throws her arm around Carly's neck, around Carly's feeble grunt in protest. "But I'm still shocked. Anyway. You and me? That'd be nuttier than Spencer's – _whatever-it-was_ that he made out of chunky peanut butter."

With that, Sam leads Carly out of the janitor's closet like they'd just gone for a stroll along the shelves. They leave the conversation there, a derelict among the cleaning things.

And actually, Spencer's whatever-it-was was an edible squirrel nest, and Carly thought it was really thoughtful and sweet, if it weren't also for the extremely sticky quality that also made it a deathtrap for adorable, misty-eyes squirrel babies.

Though in the end, it didn't matter; Carly breaths a belated, confused 'yeah,' and that's the end of that.

Sam's _happy_ with Rodney; there's no way to deny that.

Sam's not out of control like she was with Jonah. She's calm - well, as calm as Sam can be said to be - her face going soft and her hands going up to play with the edges of her hair when she talks about Rodney.

The last thing Carly wants is to mess up something that makes Sam happy. Because maybe those things that happened between them were just playing around for Sam, and Rodney is the real deal. Obviously, seeing how Sam is going out with Rodney and not Carly. Carly doesn't even know if that's what she would want from Sam, but all the same, she starts to understand what she might want a little more everyday, even though she tries to shut that part of her brain off.

Anyway, it's obviously not like that for Sam. Carly wishes she could operate on whatever impulse her nerves might fancy at any given moment and not think about things so much. Like Sam, who can just start going out with Rodney and not contemplate what might (or might not) be happening so much that she can't think straight.

It's worse that Rodney isn't the terrible boyfriend Carly had hoped he would be.

He's still sleazy, and Carly doesn't like him slinking around Sam like he's getting the upper hand in a drug trafficking scam, but he actually makes pretty good off-hand suggestions for the show (albeit they can't use most of his ideas because they're all highly dangerous and illegal in nature, and who knew Rip-Off Rodney had such a thing for anything that shined or exploded?) and sometimes whips discounted chimmichangas from his pockets when someone's hungry.

Not that he doesn't still charge them.

But still. Rodney makes Sam happy, and even though it should make Carly hate him that it's not her anymore – and Carly realizes that much through the confusion by now – Carly still doesn't. Not really.

iii.

"There're over fifty ways to refurbish a busted Pear Phone," Rodney says coolly, infusing about a hundred watts into Sam's smile. "One involves microwaving it on the popcorn setting alongside a chicken chimmichanga for five minutes."

"What's the chimmichanga for?" Freddie asks, face strained as he pulls on the collar of his striped shirt. It's _hot_.

"A guy can work up an appetite while listenin' to the microwave run for five minutes," he shrugs.

Sam agrees enthusiastically, and Freddie turns to Carly, his eyebrows raised. Ever since Sam started dating Rodney, Freddie'd tried to keep his distance from them both. Carly suspected that it was because Freddie worried his mom would find out and agonize over Freddie going fast and ready into the life of a delinquent, since Rodney'd been on the news that one time.

Only that was until Freddie had skulked into Carly's apartment that morning and started asking paranoid questions about what types of torture devices Rodney would supply to Sam, and if he'd do it for free.

The three of them had just wrapped up an episode of iCarly, and she, Sam, Freddie, and Rodney are now outdoors on one of Seattle's more unusually sweltering afternoons.

Which is _unfair_. And it's not the heat; she could live with that type of discomfort, but -

It's unfair that it's their day: her and Sam's friendship anniversary of eight years, and Sam hasn't said anything, not even a flash of eight fingers. Not that Sam usually says anything really, but eight is a sacred number in some cultures!

Now Carly is stuck walking behind Sam and her boyfriend because Freddie's mom, after inspecting Rodney's run-down station wagon, decided that Freddie isn't allowed to even go near the thing, lest a part break off and poke out one of his eyes. Against the protests of her and Freddie, Sam got Rodney to abandon the air conditioned Sleaze Mobile so they can all walk to BF Wangs together, talking loudly under the bright quiet of sky as they go.

And a part of Carly is grateful, despite the heat: she does not want to sit in a place that is possibly a hotbed for memories of Sam and Rodney's adventures in make-out land.

Just looking at them now, Carly thinks she wants to pull her own hair out (or his; she can't tell) just because he's got his hand on the small of Sam's back. Only she remembers that Rodney's good for Sam, and she really hasn't been in any more trouble than usual lately, and -

Why hadn't Carly noticed before? If she were feeling this way for her best friend, she really should have _known._

It wasn't fair, all these thoughts suddenly pouncing, like they couldn't be considerate enough to at least start off tiny.

At least she would have known. Before it got to this, that is. She would have at least have had time to prepare.

iv.

They walk for what seems like forever, and Sam is the loudest of them all (randomly shouting things at passersby and whooping when they happen to pass Crazy Fruit Dude) even though she only looks small next to Rodney, who is all long, sinewy limbs and big hair.

Sam's the smallest of them all, really, and Carly marvels that someone fit all those loud parts into her, which usually makes her seem taller and bigger than Carly. At the same time, it's like Sam knew how to look down at everyone else by the time Carly had met her. In a way.

In a way, she's also much bigger than anything else Carly has.

When they stop before a white-painted convenience store, Rodney slows and loosely throws his arm around Freddie in some semblance of male camaraderie, but it looks more like he's lassoing him in, because Freddie looks like he might want to cringe away into the cracks in the sidewalk.

While the two walk into the store, Carly and Sam stand close together under the awning, kicking too-dry cement, burning up in the first thing Carly thinks she can't ever tell Sam.

Sam looks bright and flushed and is swinging the sleeves of the two plaid shirts she has tied around her waist (one hers and one Rodney's), and her eyes going momentarily golden when she steps out from under the awning and into the sunlight to glance down the street. Her lips are red, and her shoulders are bare - and god, Carly's never thought of freckles before, but she wants to run her lips all along the ones dusted just over Sam's shoulders. It's the first time Carly really thinks of Sam as being beautiful, and they talk about something as mundane as their potential orders from BF Wangs, Carly becoming anxiously charged over the possibility of slipping and saying she wants Sam instead of Mu Shu Chicken.

Freddie comes out of the store first, but he's alone, and Carly has to squint to see him in the burnish pocket of setting sunset. He carries four Peppy Colas and is making a face like he wants to scratch under his collar but can't reach.

Rodney saunters out a few seconds later, looking around unnecessarily and has something small clutched in his hand, which he leans down to surreptitiously hand to Sam. Like he's making one of his _deals_.

Carly recognizes the hard plastic bubble container right away, knows what it is because of the time she and Sam sat on a wet sidewalk with forty quarters to shove into a vending machine. She knows by the boisterous reception the little plastic shell gets from Sam.

"No way!" Sam shouts as she furiously works her fingers like tiny crowbars at breaking it open, and her face lights up for Rodney where Carly's only seen it strained for Carly for days. "This is insane! How many quarters did you have to put in to get this one?"

Sam pulls the tiny item from the clear, plastic shell: it's one of those Boogie Bear danglers - the tiny, plastic Boogie Bear that wears a removable rubber costume. This one is in a ham costume.

"Ask no questions, and I'll tell you no lies," Rodney says, grinning like a fool, though he tries to tuck the edges of his countenance into the right places for still looking criminal-like.

Carly mimes his words grotesquely. Sam calls him cupcake.

Carly grabs for the water bottle in her purse – quite literally to wash away her expression - when Sam runs over to her with the dangler, and if she seriously wants Carly to squeal over this right now, she can _forget it_.

"Hold this for me?" Sam asks, looking windblown and scarlet.

Carly attempts to find words swimming in her momentary confusion (Sam has _pockets._), possibly ones that are fitted to end in a question mark (you know, just to go with the theme) only the water bottle is at her mouth and Sam grasps for her waist – and god, for a moment Carly gets _entirely_ the wrong idea.

Sam places her finger under Carly's belt loop and pulls so she moves toward Sam, mostly her hips and a few splashes of water, because Carly leans the rest of her body away as Sam loops the string around Carly's belt loop and beams at her innocently, but Sam's knee presses into Carly's leg, and god, Carly just _breathes_.

The sun sinks faster as they keep walking, and soon a cool tide carrying in the darkness starts to spread like a disease. The air becomes moist and hangs low around them like all Carly's enormous confusion, like this stupid thing she can't connect with, yet it's still all over her, clamming up her skin and frizzing her hair.

Still, when Sam links arms with hers and pulls her ahead of Freddie and Rodney, Carly is pleasantly surprised, because it's suddenly like they're very far away, and Carly loosens up as they stamp heavily over the pavement, arms still linked, shouting and laughing loudly to insult the quiet of the sky.

There was once a jealous Sophomore trying to spread rumors involving Carly and the words 'attention whore,' and Carly's loud notes now seem to plead for the attention of the entire universe, but only the soft, quiet city lights come down on her – on her and Sam - and Carly couldn't care less about any of it, because really, right now it's only them.

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Feel free to leave your thoughts. Next section up shortly.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Notes:** This is the end. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed; I really appreciated your comments.

**Disclaimer:** I still have no claims to _iCarly. _

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v.

Carly's meal is as unappealing as the conversation. Closed up in the booth at BF Wangs, Carly shapes a mound of loose salt in front of her (Mt. I'd Rather Be Eating Spencer's Raw Meat Sculpture Right Now) and brings her finger down through the middle until her fingertip hits the smooth table surface beneath. The circle expands.

A thin strip of delicate white paper falls into her lap like a tiny bird, and when Carly looks up, Sam, Freddie and Rodney are all staring at her. Sam's grinning around the incriminating straw in her mouth, which she puffs up her cheeks and blows on so a thin shower of soda sprays out in Carly's direction.

Freddie reaches over and grabs the paper from Carly's lap and blushes, banging his knuckles into the table end when he pulls back. Sam laughs, and Carly suddenly feels sick.

"We're talking about feet," Freddie supplies sulkily. He's leaning over toward her, his glance sidling over to Carly like it's been possessed by a crab.

"Feet?" Carly smiles, eyebrows raised. At least she's not the only uncomfortable one; Freddie must want to be there even less than she does. "You mean the organ of locomotion?"

Carly's attention on him, Freddie visibly relaxes, still rubbing his knuckles.

Sam coughs loudly as the waiter comes back to place the check and a few take-home boxes on the table.

"Hey, you wanna keep your eyes from going down her shirt?" Sam says loudly, and it's as unexpected and abrupt as if she would have jumped onto the table to bust a move. "Or do you wanna go home wearing your spine as a scarf?"

Freddie looks indignant and blushes furiously, red patches spreading down past his collar, and Carly's hand flies up to her chest, but it's the waiter who speaks.

"Excuse me?" he asks, as Carly accusingly hisses Sam's name. "I was about to ask if she thought she needed a bigger box for her Mu Shu Chicken!" he says indignantly. Then, oddly he adds: "I have a wife."

"That's right then; just think about Mu Shu Chicken go back to your not-so-perky wife," Sam says, waving a dumpling menacingly in his direction. The waiter retreats without a word, and when Carly throws a questioning - and slightly scandalized - glance at Sam, she's already looking at Carly.

Sam looks unforgiving and something else Carly can't place. The expression seems strange, and Carly can't figure out if it's because it's on Sam's face or if it's because it's directed at her. Either way, Carly's head is spinning.

"Now that was entertaining," Rodney says calmly, and Carly begins to think nothing fazes him. From the corner of her eye, Carly sees him taking a drink from his Peppy Cola. "Feet," he repeats. "They're weird. What up with toes?"

Sam looks Carly over, her mouth one hard line, before turning to Rodney; she shrugs, her face relaxing.

"I can make a sandwich with my feet," Sam offers.

Freddie makes a sound of disgust, his face going all out of shape as he possibly recalls the time Sam applied the new Glitter Gloss test makeup to his face with her toes.

A few moments later, another waitress comes by to shush them to an even quieter silence and then asks them to leave, so Rodney rationalizes that they have to take all of the peppermints and other hard candies set out by the hostesses podium.

It's almost eleven o'clock then, and when they laugh and split the candy in the parking lot, Rodney and Sam taking the bulk, they also decide to split ways: Sam and Rodney are the only ones lacking a curfew.

A walk home on fuller stomachs while making their way through an emptier darkness seems much shorter and uneventful until Sam purposely gives Freddie a sour candy he spits out with a choking sound the moment it touches his tongue, and it cracks over the pavement.

When arriving at the parking lot across the street from Carly's building, the four of them talk in scattered snippets of conversation while standing under a dusty, old streetlamp that makes Sam's hair look like tinsel, until they have to part ways. That's when Freddie finally allows himself to grumble about hating sour things because they cause tongue bruises. Against her better judgment, Carly turns back as she and Freddie leave the parking lot. She looks for Sam, but she sees Sam and Rodney.

Backing against his car, Rodney pulls Sam against him, and Carly can hear Sam laughing as he tucks her in close, putting his lips to the top of her blonde head. Carly turns back to the empty street then, wishing she hadn't bothered looking.

vi.

Carly mostly tries to laugh and pout at Freddie's grumbling over being 'manhandled' by Rip-Off Rodney, who apparently smells like lighter fluid.

"Lighter fluid is one of the five fluids that'll set off my mom's Fluid Senses when I walk through the front door," he says heatedly.

Carly really doesn't want to ask about that one.

Though it is funny to an extent, it really isn't fair that Freddie's mom still treats him like a bedridden child. Carly thinks this as she notices the sharper lines of his face. They were once just kids, and while some might still mistakenly think of them that way, Freddie was once all cuteish baby fat, soft hair, and goofy smiles. Not anymore.

When they stop in front of their apartment doors, Carly doesn't know why they do. Stop, that is, and for so long.

She thinks that Freddie wiping his hands on his pants every second and looking up at her through the fringe falling low over his forehead might mean he wants to kiss her (and she hates thinking it, but doesn't Freddie _always_ want to kiss her?) but she turns her head so her hair curtains her face and only wishes that it could be that simple.

Carly pours sleepily into her apartment, only stopping to peek in on Spencer, who is somehow sleeping on a mattress that's five feet higher than it was the last time she was in his room. She sheds her clothing as soon as she walks through her bedroom door, replacing her outfit with an overlong t-shirt before she gets into bed.

It's dark and quiet, all except for the initial downpour of a new rain pounding over her window, though Carly never counts the rain as noise. Not really.

It goes on (the rain and the darkness) without any frigidness in the atmosphere to match, and hours may have passed, Carly doesn't know, only that she's breathing her first sleep-steady breaths when the door clicks open.

The floorboards crack softly, and Carly hears two light, muffed thuds before the bed creaks lower.

Someone -_Sam_ - drapes herself heavily over Carly like a cold compress (clammy and cold with tiny rainfalls dropping from her skin) like Sam couldn't even be bothered to dry off first.

There are long, wet strands of her hair falling over her and the words "I didn't forget" whispered against the corner of Carly's mouth, and Carly's breath picks up, brushing Sam's cheek like a steam-soft ghost before Sam's cold mouth covers hers, and Carly's drowsiness washes away so she can arch into the body above her -- into the wet and cold, into a glass-shard smile that curves at the hollow of her throat.

Carly starts to feel warmer even though her t-shirt is becoming soaked-through with rain, and she breathes Sam's name, but the word goes to curl into Sam's wet hair like fingers, and Carly's hands are slow to catch on, but they're there a second later: Carly reaches for her, and Sam takes the reaching like it's allowance, running her hands along Carly's bare thighs and kissing Carly like she's waited forever to do it.

"Wait," Carly whispers and she has to say it twice more before she finally shifts her weight and nudges Sam over with her entire body, until she's the one who's on top, her hands pinning Sam's above her head. Carly's face is in the pillow by Sam's head, and Sam's lips are at the spot by her ear, panting furious, hot winds.

"Why'd you stop?"

Carly exhales. Slowly. "What are you doing here, Sam?"

She wouldn't really even ask Sam any other time, but it's different tonight. Everything is different, even if Sam can brush it all away like it was an ugly tangle at the back of her mind.

Sam doesn't say anything for a while, just breathes heavily under Carly's weight.

She's incredibly warm against Carly in all the right places, and it's like Carly can feel her insides, feel everything that makes Sam work, which Carly thinks might just be the most beautiful thing she has ever experienced. Even though Sam would probably hate to hear her say that.

Still, it makes Carly only wants to kiss Sam again, which is a problem.

"You have my Boogie Bear?"

"_Sam_," Carly grumbles into the pillow. For some inexplicable reason, that makes her wants to cry or hit something and definitely never take her face out of the pillow.

Sam hesitates a moment before sighing into Carly's ear. "My mom and Todd had a fight," she says softly, her breathing evening out. "She fed him non-Kosher meat again, and you know how he gets all picky."

Carly pushes herself up, which makes the headboard bang against the wall. She goes very still for a moment--Spencer might be a heavy sleeper, but that doesn't mean he doesn't sometimes wake for snacks--before sitting back, settling herself over Sam's hips. Sam's mouth is flushed and parted under the bright light of the moon, like she's about to drink it in, as strands of hair stick carelessly to her face.

"He's _Jewish_," Carly hisses.

"Whatever. He leaves the toilet seat up like any other guy, so he should be able to eat like any other guy."

Carly sighs and gazes wearily at the pillow where her face just was; it's quiet again.

"Not that I don't want you here in my bed right now - you know, making things damp and confusing and everything, but...why didn't you just go home with your boyfriend?" Carly whispers. She's nearly fraught, and although she doesn't want Sam to go, Carly doesn't _want_ to want her there.

You just don't break other people up like that; she can't be the one to break Sam and Rodney up, just like she couldn't be the one to break up Freddie and Valerie.

"What are you trying to do, encourage teen pregnancy? Why can't I just stay here tonight?" Sam's starting to sound annoyed, and Carly tries not to flinch at the 'pregnancy' jab. Sam moves enough for Carly anyway, though, squirming under Carly's grip like Carly's really going to let go; Carly just holds on tighter. "We only have like five minutes left of our friendship anniversary," Sam continues in a lighter tone. "_Eight years_, Carls. Some religions worship the number eight or something."

"I've heard," Carly deadpans.

"Anyway," Sam smirks. "I wanted to give you your present."

Carly makes a sound of indignation, amazed at Sam's gall. Like Carly would really just let Sam come to her for No-Strings-Attached Onetime Deal Number Three or whatever just because it's their friendship anniversary. She throws her leg over Sam and plops herself down on the bed with her back facing toward her, not even bothering to change or dry off.

"Go to sleep, Sam," Carly whispers.

"Carly, I didn't mean - I wasn't talking about _that_."

But Carly makes sure Sam's only audience is curves and lines muffled in the darkness.

Sam whispers Carly's name and grabs onto the back of Carly's t-shirt, tugging the fabric lightly to get her attention, but Carly shuts her eyes to it. It's really no use, though, because Sam throws an arm around Carly and physically repositions her, leaning over to tangle herself up in her. Carly only wishes she had the willpower to move.

Her heart still beats so fast, and it feels like it's going to break free of her chest, and when Carly says nothing for what seems like hours, Sam falls heavily onto her side, not even having the courtesy to untangle her bedraggled self from Carly, so Carly doesn't have to feel Sam's stupid elbow jammed into her ribs. It _hurts_.

vii.

Perched on a kitchen stool the next morning, Carly hits her foot against the island and watches Spencer poke loudly around the stovetop as bacon-scented smoke rises to the ceiling. The morning sun makes the curly shapes visible in the air, and Carly watches the smoke with the feeling she's trapped in a dreary cloud.

"My back is killing me," Spencer says as he scoops bacon onto a plate covered with paper towels. Weirdly enough, he looks pleased about his back pain.

"Oh yeah," Carly recalls. "Why is your mattress like, about to collide with the ceiling?"

"Well," Spencer begins, and Carly can tell by the complacent grin molding her brother's face as he places a plate of bacon in front of her that she's going to like whatever he has to say. "Socko was over last night, and - have you heard the story of the princess and the pee? I tried to shield you from it when you were a kid; thought is was kind of unhygienic."

Carly is floored for a moment, thinking that moldy food never fazed Spencer before, until she realizes what he means.

"Spencer," Carly laughs. "The pea was like a pea that comes from a pod! You know, green, vegetableish - every kid's worst nightmare?"

"Oh," Spencer says, deflating. He starts sliding an orange salt shaker that Carly has never seen before between his hands. "Oh, well. Yeah," he shrugs nonchalantly. "I - I knew that."

"Okay, what does that have to do with your new gigantic - _Spencer_. You didn't -"

"What? Blasphemy!" Spencer cries, pointing the salt shaker at Carly. "I am the resident responsible adult. The cleanliest of the land! Some say next to godly, and - there were precautionary measures!" As Spencer says this, he deflates a little more with each word until he's visibly distraught.

"What?" Carly laughs. "A plastic bag?"

Spencer leans forward on the counter, grabbing Carly's shoulders. "Don't tell granddad," he says solemnly before his eyes go over Carly's head for a moment. "I didn't know Sam stayed here last night."

Carly leans forward and reaches for a piece of bacon, because she won't turn around; she _refuses_. She can hear Sam walking slowly toward the food and begins to push her bacon around on her plate as distraction.

"That's because I'm sneaky," Sam says, sounding pleased, as she reaches over Carly's shoulder to grab a piece of bacon. She shoves it into her mouth before she speaks again; "Like a ninja."

"Funny," Carly says, and it's not funny at all. "You woke _me_ up."

Sam plops herself down on the stool next to Carly and reaches for her legs, spinning Carly to face her; this, Carly notes, almost results in an elbow-to-bacon tragedy.

"Carly," Sam says, looking openly into Carly's face. Her hair is dark with moisture from a recent shower, and her skin in flushed, and Carly can feel her own face overheating, because it all reminds her too much of the night before. Well, except for the bacon and her 29-year-old brother, who possibly slept on pee, watching. "I forgot to give you something last night. For our friendship anniversary."

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Spencer gushes. "I'm gonna get the camera!" He lunges around the island and over to the hallway leading to his bedroom before stopping in the doorway to look around dramatically. "This time I can set it to _no flash_. Another chance to say no to that meddlesome squiggly icon!"

He's gone the next second, and Sam looks toward Carly for a moment, bemused.

"He doesn't like the flash icon," Carly explains. "He says it looks like a parasite and promotes tapeworm. Just go on. It'll take him a while to find the camera anyway."

Sam shrugs and reaches into her pocket, bringing out a thin, silver necklace with two tiny charms. It dangles between them from Sam's closed hand, still and almost ordinary in every aspect but the gesture.

"_Sam_," Carly breathes, meaning it to convey more of a question than it actually does. She closes her hands around the delicate chain like she's cupping a small insect inside. "It's –"

"Did I tell you about my uncle?" Sam asks, letting the necklace go so it falls into Carly's palm. The charm is actually two frail, intertwined silver hearts.

Sam puts her hands in her lap, grasping the material of her shorts until her knuckles are flecked white with strain.

"I almost found it!" Spencer screams from the other room.

Carly shakes her head, watching Sam's hands. "One who is or isn't a vicious criminal?"

Sam fidgets uneasily in her seat, her eyes devoid of the usual flicker of light they possesses when divulging a family scandal.

"He might as well be one now. I mean - okay. I had - _have_ this uncle," Sam stumbles. "Frank. He lives with this guy, see?"

Carly doesn't really see what some uncle of Sam's living arrangements have to do with anything, and she might have put it to Sam trying to go off on an inappropriate tangent, except that Sam's tone is entirely foreboding.

Carly swallows hard and speaks slowly. "Why're you telling me this?"

"Because. He lived with him, Carls," Sam continues, getting unnecessarily worked-up. "They have his and _his_ bath towels _living together._ Get it? Half of my family completely disowned the guy. Mark sends flaming crap to his doorstep every Friday."

The entire world suddenly seems to tip on end, and it's like they live in one of the snowglobes Carly hates, the ones her dad sometimes sends home from his travels.

Something awful and dizzying spreads through her; this time, it doesn't take Carly long to figure out what it is. She's been so _naïve_. The realization hits with the force of a Mack truck, and in a way, it's like Carly's just found a piece of a puzzle she didn't even know was missing.

It's seems so stupid now, but in the midst of everything that had happened the past two weeks, everything had come down to just her and Sam. Everything was a mess, but it was a mess that belonged only to them. And sure Rodney had unintentionally been erecting walls all week and generally acting as a nuisance, but still. Where he fit into it seemed infinitesimal compared to the years that were between her and Sam.

Rodney had in no way been the main hindrance: to Carly, that was whatever devastating piece hidden inside Sam that had prevented her from developing any feelings for Carly.

All along, Carly had been thinking in nothing but 'if only's: if only she understood what was going on; if only Carly was more like Sam; if only Sam was more like Carly.

If only Sam was attracted to Carly the way she was attracted to Rodney.

God, she was so wrong. Sam cares. Sam like, really _cares_.

And her reluctance isn't even some inability to return Carly's feelings. It's something else so beyond just them now, and everything's been so beyond anything that could be fixed with a viewer poll on iCarly for so long that it makes Carly feel woozy, like she's inside one of those bottles people throw out to sea in old movies about shipwrecks. And even though it really should have, before this moment, the most glaringly obvious thing to worry about had never once entered Carly's mind in a way that could turn the entire situation around.

Carly and Sam are both girls.

Obviously she hadn't overlooked it as a fact, but – she just hadn't thought it would matter enough to get in the way of whatever was going on. This was _her and Sam_.

Infuriatingly enough, the only thing Carly seems able to say is a stunned: "Why Friday?"

"Because it's the day he _fries_ over a flaming pile of crap," Sam says, her expression almost unreadable. "It doesn't matter why. Just that _he does it_."

"Well. _Half_," Carly says. She fumbles with the tiny necklace in her palm, the way she's similarly fumbling to say something – _anything_ – coherent, but no matter what, the dizzying edge to the world won't rub off.

Sam shakes her head and leans back. "They're my _family_," Sam states, without any uncertainty. Carly feels the pressure rise in her throat, making her feel like she's going to cry.

Of course that's Sam's answer; Sam has her entire extended family on speed-dial (with the exception of Frank and his manfriend, apparently), their closeness and apparent eagerness to pull together being something that has always made Carly nearly swell with longing.

Carly really only has Spencer; everyone else considered family – even her father – just flit in and out of her life with the holidays. Though for the first time, she begins to think that maybe Spencer is just enough.

Carly's breathing feels heavier – like her lungs are producing stone – and she hears Spencer scream, "Ow, _ my_ eye!" but Sam's sitting in front of her, taking a jackhammer to her heart.

"Look, Carls." Sam leans in close and reaches out to grab Carly's arm tightly; Carly can feel her breath. There's a knock on the door somewhere beyond the tension, and Sam lets go, leaning back and looking over. "These things happen."

"_No_," Carly says, her jaw feeling tight.

Sam turns back around, her eyes momentarily wide, and Carly hopes it isn't because she heard Carly's voice tremble.

_"What?"_

_"Not to us_," Carly tries, fiercer this time. She's furious, and it momentarily washes out the sadness in a way that makes Carly have to loop the thought that it's not Sam's fault through her mind, only the knocking is repeating, snagging on her thoughts like anything else besides her and Sam has the right to be there right then. "And I will not look. There will be no lookage. I refuse. I refuse to look!""

"_Okay_," Sam says, and she puts her hands up in surrender. "You don't have to get your panties all in a twist."

"I am not getting my -" Carly blushes and stops mid-sentence, because even now, Spencer's lecture about being ladylike flashes in her mind, and she _can't_. It's absurd, and it's the stupidest thing to be thinking now, but it's also somehow sobering, and the next time she speaks, she's entirely focused. "You tell me that you honestly think this'll ever be over, Sam Puckett."

"Funny, it seems pretty over right now," Sam says, and Carly can tell she's getting defensive. "I dunno what you're getting all worked-up for. It was just a two time -"

"_Three_."

"What?"

Carly holds up three fingers. "_Three_ times."

"_Okay_." Sam grabs Carly's three fingers in her hand and forces them down before realizing what she's doing and letting go quickly. "It doesn't matter. Look, it was just a _three-time_ thing. Ya happy? No big deal. It won't happen again."

"Then why are you telling me about your uncle?" Carly asks with furious calm. "Why, Sam? Why the necklace with the little hearts?"

Spencer's yelling again as there's another knock at the front door.

"Because," Sam says with finality. "I can't. Because _we_ just can't. It won't work. _Ever_."

It's quiet for a moment, of course it is, because _evers_ always accompany the most devastating things Carly hears: _Mommy's never coming back. It won't work_. Ever.

Sam's face is hard and unyielding, yet every curve and line of her body seems to betray a strain and just how tired she actually is. Carly instinctively inches forward, maybe to pull Sam in for a hug, she doesn't know. Only it doesn't matter, because Sam flinches, and Carly suddenly realizes she can't.

Carly almost wishes she didn't understand it so much, so she could just be angry at Sam and lash out at her. But the fact that she does understand-–she could never do that to Sam. She is, after all, her best friend.

Carly finally just scoots off her stool, attempting – almost futilely at that – to not stomp all the way to the front door.

Through the peephole is a tiny, distorted version of Rodney and Freddie, inciting only more petulance which seemed to have simmered down just moments before.

"Oh great," Carly says as she flings the door open. Rodney breezes past in a tidal wave of camouflage, making a lovesick beeline for Sam. "Did you come here to eat all our breakfast foods?" Carly calls after him. "Because it's all right there on the counter! Go on. Chomp away!"

"Chill," Rodney says, gesticulating lazily before he turns back to Sam. "I only came to collect something very dear to me." He smirks the last bit, and Carly bites down on her cheek to keep from feeling she has to scream.

Freddie leans uncomfortably away from where Sam flings herself at Rodney, saying "Hey, baby!" and Carly slams the door and walks over to him.

Freddie makes a face; Carly feels she must concur by returning his twisted countenance tenfold.

"I came over when I saw him standing out in the hall for awhile," Freddie says. "Thought you might need me. Or something."

Carly forces a smile over at Freddie, but every bit of it is strung tighter than a tennis racket. Her body starts to come down from the sting of indignation, a low buzz that feels like smoke is leaving through her pores.

It's then that she notices the necklace still in her hand, pressed into her palm like a flower between the pages of a closed book. Carly unfolds her fist, her fingers working slowly under the previous strain of her stony grip. The charm leaves a livid-looking indentation where it rested in her palm, and when Carly first glances at it, she thinks it's a bruise.

"We're fine."

Sam breaks from Rodney and turns toward the staircase, motioning for him to stay by the couch as Spencer yells one more time from the other room about the camera.

Poised with a foot at the bottom step, her hand clutching the banister too tightly, Sam stops momentarily to glance over at Carly. She shakes her head sadly and entirely forbiddingly when she meets Carly's eyes, as if she really thinks Carly is planning on running after her to snap at her heels or tackle her on the stairwell. The frizzy parts of Sam's air-drying hair catch the sunlight like a halo, and Carly sighs.

The silver necklace is coiled around Carly's pinkie finger like a tiny serpent, and she slips it into her jeans pocket as Sam begins bounding up the stairs. For the second time that morning, Carly feels a sharp, foreboding feeling.

It's in her guts, at the sharp part of her ribs, pressed at the back of her skull, pounding in her temples.

It doesn't matter where: just that she feels it, just that she knows 'it won't happen again' are empty words that drift between her and Sam like dead and broken Autumn leaves gathered in by a draft, and neither have what it takes to breathe life into them. It'll happen again and again, she knows with a strange certainty, Rodney or no Rodney.

Freddie pokes Carly sharply in the shoulder, his eyebrows raised.

"How come your lips are all red and…swollen?" he observes.

Carly shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest and momentarily pursing her lips. "I was sucking on too much of that hard candy we got at the restaurant last night," she says coldly before looking back over toward the staircase.

"Did you save any for me?"

"You wouldn't like it," Carly says, getting a last glimpse of Sam before she disappears past the first curve of the stairwell. "It was sour."

* * *

Your thoughts are appreciated!

Thanks for reading.


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